Ben Kelley

Federal auto safety regulations cover new cars, of course. But what about older cars? Of the more than 250 million vehicles on the roads, three-quarters are more than five years old, according to the data firm IHS Automotive, and more than 50 million are pre-1999 models. They met the government’s safety rules when they were […]

When General Motors CEO Mary Barra appeared before Congress in early April to apologize for the company’s 10-year cover-up of a lethal safety defect, it was a headline-grabbing moment. But it was not unprecedented. Hovering over Barra was the ghost of another momentous GM mea culpa, delivered to Congress nearly half a century ago. On […]

The scandal over General Motors’ concealment for more than a decade of dangerously defective ignition switches in some of its cars highlights an often-overlooked fact: Injury lawsuits sometimes reveal health and safety hazards that would otherwise remain secret. As Ben Kelley notes, the deadly ignition defects were not exposed by engineers for GM or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but by an engineer for plaintiffs in a wrongful-death suit.

What began as a simple bill to assure that car rental companies in California provide defect-free cars to their customers has become ensnarled in a full-out campaign by those companies to kill the bill as it moves through the state’s legislature.

America’s once-vigorous commitment to stopping death and injury on our roads — one of the nation’s most severe public health problems — has become dangerously weak. With the failure of auto safety legislation in the last Congress, it appears that the public and its policymakers may no longer be interested in supporting tough measures to substantially reduce bloodshed on the highways.

A fatal motorcycle accident in San Diego County on Jan. 30, 2011. (CAL FIRE San Diego)

After years of inaction, federal regulators are trying to crack down on the use of cheap novelty helmets linked to thousands of motorcycle crash deaths and injuries in recent years.

The novelty helmets do not comply with federal safety standards, and provide little or no protection against head injuries in a crash. Still, as FairWarning has reported, tens of thousands of the helmets — also known as “loophole lids” or “brain buckets” – every year are imported from overseas and peddled over the Internet.

But now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing rules to cut off the supply of novelty helmets and make it easier for state law enforcement officials to identify offending gear on the road. Together, NHTSA officials say, the moves could save dozens or even hundreds

A new study has found that firefighters have a greater than average risk of developing some types of cancer, and that black and Latino firefighters face the highest risk of all.

The findings by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the federal agency thatresearches work-related hazards, confirm previous research about firefighters and cancers that may be caused by inhalation of toxic fumes. But the study is unique for its size and focus on minority firefighters. Authors say it included more firefighters with cancer–3,996–than previous studies.

The study, published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, used 1988 to 2007 data from the California Cancer Registry to compare the incidence of cancer among firefighters and the general public.It found that all California firefighters had a 30 to 100 percent greater chance of developing melanoma and certain cancers of the esophagus, lung, prostate,

For workers like John W. McDonnell, 47, a bartender at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, secondhand smoke remains a serious issue. “You get done with your shift, and you’re breathing heavy and your eyes burn and your nose is sore,” he said.

NIOSH, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called on employers to take steps to protect workers. The advisory agency recommended banning